Kaleidoscope
Concept
Around the same time that I created Reeya, another idea took shape as well: Inspired by various video games I considered creating one of my own which should combine my favorite elements from all of them. I wanted an explorable world full of adventures, and virtual characters whom you could befriend - or not, depending on your choice.
The first two characters I thought up were Calyrra, the intended protagonist, and Ycalla, the living spaceship which would kick off the plot. Using the common tamagotchi taming methods - feeding, playing, cuddling - the former would gain the trust of this creature, until one day it would invite her to travel the solar system together.
Soon afterward, two more groups emerged whom they would meet out there. One of these were the technologically advanced inhabitants of Ranul, a moon of the lava planet Xavoa. The other group were the priestesses on Temroph, a small planet at the outer rim of the solar system. Initially, I wanted to populate two more of the planets, but the ideas for them never really took hold.
At the beginning, all inhabitants of this system still looked extremely human-like although they were definitely not linked to our earth. The main differences were colorful hair, eccentric make-up and foreign clothing.
Near the end of my school years I started re-designing the three species to make them notably more alien. The priestesses gained insectoid traits, the inhabitants of Ranul became scrawny reptiles and Calyrra's people was given fins.
A few years after the first ideas, I came up with the concept of a "magic flow" from which the priestesses would draw supernatural powers. This flow is located at the outer rim of the solar system and influences its inhabitants, among other reasons by having contributed significantly to the emergence of life there.
Some time after becoming a university student I had the idea that I would like to have random elements in that game, for example levels which would be configured differently on every playthrough. Basically, a collection of building blocks which would re-combine and form new images all the time - like the fragments in the toy kaleidoscope I had as a child. With this, the name of this project was set - as well as that of the force which drives the change in this solar system.
By now the Kaleidoscope is a cosmic phenomenon which sends out a colorful mix of electromagnetic radiation across the whole spectrum. From this came the type of magic that the priestesses work, as well as the camouflage function which Ycalla has today - the use of these energies for separating matter on a subatomic level and re-combining it. Which brings us back to the colorful fragments in the toy kaleidoscope.
Implementation
Like Reeya, this project had to take a backseat in favor of university studies and the following full-time employment, and except for a few concepts there was little progress for years - but nevertheless, this world was always in the back of my mind. During the first semester I made a sculpture of Ycalla, while attending my first conference as a student assistant I gathered ideas for research approaches that I could use for making it real, names and plot fragments appeared at various points in my daily life, and also, the game scenario in my Master's thesis was inspired by events that should take place in that world.
Since 2016, I'm more actively working toward filling the Kaleidoscope world with life. The cultures in that solar system are taking shape bit by bit, new characters are created, I'm composing music for accompanying it, and since the end of 2018, I'm taking first steps toward implementing it in the Unity game engine.
I also started a smaller game in Ranul's past as a practice piece for the main game that revolves around Ycalla and Calyrra. My progress so far is documented in the blog on this website.